head down, tinkering and thinking

So, I'm a good few months post book, nearly a year, I'd expected to have written more on here, but house hunting got in the way and my family are quite lovely too. I've got about a dozen lengthly drafts sitting around in marsedit on the social internet and other ideas inspired by the book, which I'll finish up soon enough. I've also been writing more frequently using tumblr on chopped onions.

However my new excitement (which I carefully avoided while writing the book) is the arduino, They are a huge amount of fun, I saw them first in 2007 via Alex and Matt (thanks) at the Paris XTech. A month or so later and I was drafting a proposal for the book I then started writing in January 2008. I could see just how much of a joyous time sink they would be. I'm quite glad I did in a way, Oscar is now four and really quite excited by the whole idea.

I made my first real own invented thing today, combined the LCD and temperature sensor to make a digital thermometer, which made me happy. the electronics worked first time, which surprised me. My brief exploration of electronics in my teens was not as much fun. Breadboards are excellent, though I have bought a soldering iron and a multimeter for the eventual real making of things.

More things to experiment with planned and I've acquired some of my 1980s space lego and will get the technical lego of the same vintage soon enough. That plus some lego hacking and an arduino mini will be fun. Also quite tempted by garden automation, measuring soil temperature, controlling watering etc seems like a good use of the arduino platform, I've read some of the stuff on growduinos already.